


The soul within: You

by Valkyrie_Lenneth



Series: The Soul Within: Things I wanted to know when I was 16... [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Things I wanted to know when I was 16...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 17:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17923232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrie_Lenneth/pseuds/Valkyrie_Lenneth
Summary: The deeper, darker scars are usually the petty, childish ones.





	The soul within: You

**Author's Note:**

> You can have big or small problems, and you can ask for help to solve them or keep quiet; but you must always remember three things: 
> 
> #1 - Only you can make your problems as important or as trivial as you see fit.  
> #2 - Most people won't understand why "a trivial thing" is driving you crazy. Things that are important to you may not hold the same value to others, no matter how close others are to you.  
> #3 - In the end, for better or worse, you'll overcome your problems or be crushed by them. Only you can save or damn yourself.

When you go to your first blind date - the MIRC is your best ally for them -, and you take for a chaperone one of your best friends from high school... you feel at the top of the world.

You're excited that a guy wants to meet you, after several online talks. It scares you a little that your mom would find out (after all, you told her you were going to your friend's house to do homework). It makes you nervous wondering what both of you are going to talk about when you meet, face to face, for the first time... and everything seems to you like butterflies in your stomach and sweaty hands.

Your friend and you arrive to the agreed place and he is already there; looking from one side to the other, waiting for you. You smile like an idiot as your friend and you approach him. He notices the both of you as you get closer... and smiles too, expectantly. It seems that it has been a good first impression. However, as you and your friend get closer, you realize that he is not smiling or looking at you... but your friend. Your smile falters for a moment, but you manage to keep it in place.

Each step that brings the both of you closer to him only serves to establish the obvious: he expects your friend to be you... you curse inwardly, wondering if it would have been wiser to come alone (but the 'stranger danger' posibility and kidnappers, using the new technology known as Internet for their shady deeds, was what prompted you to ask her to tag along).

It is not your friend's fault to be pretty: tall, thin, with light skin and large, expressive eyes; straight, waist-long hair. She still hasn't developed the curves of a full woman, but her confident and extroverted personality compensates for such physical trait. You: short and plump, with light olive skin and small, slit eyes; a tomboyish hair cut ("Prince Valiant" style) and withdrawn personality. If you think about it, you two are like Ying and Yang.

You both stand in front of him and he calls your friend by your name; his smile is broad and affable when he extends his hand to greet her (before the world went crazy and everyone started kissing each other in greeting despite not being acquainted). Your friend, calmly, ignores his outstretched hand and with a gentle gesture of hers, guides his attention to you while saying: "No, it's her".

He turns to see you and, in that moment, you can see the imperceptible change in his features. It has been a two-second change (before his face becomes friendly again), and yet that told you everything: his brows furrowed, his smile faded slightly and - for that micro moment of time - his arm trembled slightly, seeking its initial position at his side. But it's been two seconds (you sure didn't notice... but you know you did.) This meeting, which you looked forward so much, is over even before it started and he turns to you and greets you with the treacherous hand that moments before had decided it was not worth the gesture.

You greet him, but while he talks to you and introduces himself, his eyes are on your friend: he speaks to her, even if it seems to be directed at you. Internally, you sigh with disappointment. As you all are in a known townsquare in the area, he offers to go for water or refreshment for all of you. However, he asks your friend to go with him - to tell him what refreshment you like. You doubt that your friend is so dense as to not know what he really wants - to talk to her alone. Your friend locks eyes with you momentarily: you both know it.

You choose to stand aside (this did not work for you, but your friend doesn't need to leave empty handed). You shrug your shoulders and tell your friend what refreshment you want. She seems dissatisfied with this turn of events (you thank her inwardly, but it's no good that she cannot have a good time just because things did not turn out as you expected).

Your friend and him go to the nearest convenience store to look for drinks while you seat on a bench simmering in your misery... an hour goes by. You understand that the delay is simply because he wants to talk with your friend. Honestly, you consider the possibility of ditching this whole thing and leave them to their own devices... but your friend came as a favor to you, the least you can do is return the gesture.

You see them coming back half an hour later. Your friend gives you your soda. You hurry it in four big gulps and drop the bottle in the trash can next to the bench. It's time to go.

Lucky you, it is not necessary to offer any extra plesantries. You simply thank him for sparing time for this meeting (90 minutes in which you practically were not required). He nods and, as a closing request, asks your friend if he can have her phone number to keep in touch. She says that her parents do not like boys phoning her home (blessed old days where you did not have the shackle we now know as mobile phones). She turns around to follow you.

You know that, although your friend's parents are strict, they would not deny her from talking to an acquaintance over the phone. Without a second thought, and as you both walk back home, you tell your friend that she could have continued contact with him. "He's a boy", she says non-chalantly, "I'm interested in older men". You shrug your shoulders and think about the day's irony: you wanted to meet him, he wanted to meet your friend... and she was not interested in him at all. It is like the snake Uroboros, which symbolizes the eternal cycle of things - also the eternal effort, the eternal struggle or the useless effort... since the cycle begins again despite any attempt to stop it.

'That's how relationships are', you muse to yourself, 'an endless cycle of chasing a person you like; while that person chases after the person they like; while that other person chases after the person they like... on and on'. Maybe that's why it's uncommon that you end up staying with the one you liked in the first place.

Your friend leaves you at the corner of the block where you both have to go your separate ways and says goodbye. In spite of everything, you bitterly blame her for today's disappointment - even though you remind yourself again and again that you invited her along. You even wonder if the meeting would have turned out differently if you had not taken her with you. Now you will never know...

However, this experience has left you with the following lessons (negative lessons, of course, when you are in high school and going through adolescence... you prefer to focus on self-pity and inferiority): number one, you're not pretty and you never will be... no boy will be interested in you ever. Number two, it's not worthy to have expectations, dreams or hopes in love and relationships... they will not be fulfilled. And number three, feelings make you vulnerable... if you do not show them, if you do not let others see the tender and yearning soul within you, they cannot hurt you.

You will believe a guy when he tells you he is your friend... but you will remain skeptical when - and if - they talk to you about love. You nod for yourself and decide that, from now on, you will not believe what a boy says about matters of the heart.

They say that one bad experience is nothing to worry about... but when said experience happens in an age as vulnerable as your high school years... one is one too many.


End file.
